Open Sea Map facilitates your next sailing trip

OpenSeaMap provides free access to nautical and touristic information that can be used and amended by everybody. It is a free crowdsourcing project for sailors, motor boat drivers, kayakers and many more.

Google Maps and Google Earth already offer satellite images of oceans, lakes and rivers. OpenSeaMap goes even further. Nautical and touristic information is collected and bundled on one website and this data can be used by everybody for free. Sailors and motor boat drivers can use and add up-to-date information about seamarks, port information, ship supplies, repair shops, ocean weather data from all over the world.

The founders of OpenSeaMap aim to create a comprehensive sea chart, river chart, and map that is free for all, and volunteers can work on it on a daily basis. You can access and download late-breaking charts here. There are already free charts for Garmin and charts for Lowrance, Simrad and B&G are in production. Find below the current worldwide coverage:

Nautical charts are expensive and in many countries data is not up-to-date, inaccurate or insufficient due to a lack of technical or financial resources. By means of OpenSeaMap, obsolete information can be updated and new data can be collected. Since 2009, two million users have already participated in the crowdsourcing project and currently 4,000 ports and 2,000 marinas are recorded. These are linked to the seaport handbook “SkipperGuide“, which includes information on Europe’s sailing regions and everybody can add information to them. Furthermore, OpenSeaMap uses the database of the precursor OpenStreetMap which leads to more exact data.

The nautical chart cannot only be used and amended online, but it can also be saved locally and used offline if you do not have an internet connection. Moreover, there is an app for Android and iOS devices and navigation programmes that can show your current position on the nautical chart.

Everybody can participate in the project who has a GPS device, echo sounder, computer and a chartplotter. You can find more information about how you can join and participate in the OpenSeaMap here. If you want to find out more about the project for experienced mariners, programmers, and thousands of data collectors, click here.

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